CINEMA & ARCHITECTURE

Cinema and Architecture in Translation is a course that will survey key cinematic moments and techniques within the history of film and find new intersections between architecture and dramatic situational narratives. This course is organized into a series of thematic lectures that parallel the contemporary development of the two disciplines both in theory and technique. The focus will be on the analysis of mise-en-scène, the architecture of the film scene and developing speculative architectural futures.

Current pre and post-production techniques in filmmaking are converging with architectural digital representation. This is an opportunity that provides fertile ground for architects to critically re-examine the ‘digital’ and ‘image’ making in a variety of scales in relation to impactful narratives and visualizations. There is a rich history in constructing images, speculative worlds and scenes for the film industry. These tools, specifically the technique of “matte-painting” will be explored in this course. We will examine the parallels between the tools and strategies of cinematic visualization as it relates to advanced architectural image making.

Students will engage and explore selected readings on the intersections between architecture and cinema. While an important aspect of this course will be to identify the differences between “real” and “cinematic” architecture, we will also explore the ever more porous borders between the physical, the virtual and the amorphous. The emphasis is to encourage more intellectual rigor along with more fearless and technically proficient visualization. This is an advanced representation course that produces 2D images and narrative texts. instructors: Danielle Willems, Nicholas Klein